


Calling It Hatred

by stuntinf8



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: 5+1 Things, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27477844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuntinf8/pseuds/stuntinf8
Summary: There were plenty of qualities Neil Josten possessed that gave Andrew a good enough reason to hate his very being.AKA 5 times Andrew claims that he hates Neil + the 1 time that he gives up on lying to himself.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 12
Kudos: 267





	Calling It Hatred

  1. There were plenty of qualities Neil Josten possessed that gave Andrew a good enough reason to hate his very being.



There was the way that Neil would obsess relentlessly over an exy game with Kevin at one in the morning, the two of them conspiring over Belmonte’s starting striker and all of the weak points that said striker brought to the, in Kevin’s words, “wasted potential of a team”; even when Andrew shoved a pillow over his head to dull the incessant drum of their harsh whispering, he could never quite block out the noise of Neil’s excited, obnoxious, junkie-induced shout of exclamation when one of the teams scored a point, and he’d end up lying awake til Neil would finally decide that they’d done enough exy-scrutinizing for the night.

Kevin would stay up for at least another hour continuing his useless obsession, but at least the noise would dim down to an intermittent huff of Kevin berating the players by himself.

There was also the way that Neil would waste half of Andrew’s cigarettes, _expensive_ cigarettes, just to smell the smoke wafting between them. Neil hadn’t explained his reasoning for that little quirk yet, and Andrew didn’t care enough to ask. He didn’t care enough to ask because he hated Neil.

_Hated him_.

Then there was the way that Neil would tug at his auburn hair when he was frustrated, never too hard, but enough to force Andrew to grab the idiot’s wrist and refuse to let Neil go til he found a better way to relieve his stress. That meant running til Neil’s legs gave out.

And of course. The running. The fucking running.

It never stopped. At six in the morning, before even Kevin’s alarm blared loud enough to wake everyone up, Andrew would wake to the snick of their dorm door closing shut, a flash of auburn hair leaving the room. Where was Neil going? Oh, that’s right.

Running.

At practice, when Wymack would call for break, where had Neil gone? He wasn’t taking a breather or hydrating like any other functioning human being would.

That’s right.

Neil was running laps.

When it was nine o’clock at night, and Neil was bouncing on the balls of his feet like he hadn’t already worked out four times that day, where did Neil go?

Andrew hated him. He _hated_ him.

But the thing that he considerably hated most about Neil was how he was so completely oblivious when it came to the little things. Like math.

Neil was currently sitting in one of the over-sized beanbags that took up a good portion of their dorm room doing math work for whatever excessive and unnecessary level of calculus class that he was enrolled in.

Andrew found math almost as useless as exy, it was fucking stupid, really, but Neil actually enjoyed it. The idiot, if anything, took pleasure in sitting down and solving equations, and something about that made Andrew angry. Something about the way that Neil could process and compute and whizz through each set like it was somehow fun for him. It made Andrew _feel_ things.

Things like hatred.

He was sitting in his own over-sized beanbag while Neil broke down another problem that had way too many letters and not nearly enough numbers; Andrew was trying to study for the upcoming midterm in his criminology class.

Every time his train of thought clicked into place though, Neil’s jostling while he rushed through another problem, scratching his pencil into the paper as loud as possible then just as quickly erasing his work to make room for more, would pull Andrew out of his criminology class and back into whatever Neil considered a solution to the equation.

Andrew looked up from the stack of papers sitting in his lap to Neil, who was now furiously scribbling all over his own paper with a look so invested and so far away from their dorm room that Andrew got the sudden urge to slam his foot down in irritation. Not for attention, because he hated Neil, and he didn’t need attention, but instead for some damn quiet.

Neil did not notice Andrew’s distaste for his maneuvers of productivity. If anything, Neil began scribbling and scratching and erasing even harder and at a faster pace than before. Andrew continued to stare.

  
He continued to stare, and it’s because he was so caught up in trying to get Neil to quiet down with his unwavering glare, that he began to notice other things.

Things like how the sun was hitting Neil’s eyes through the window in a way that made them even bluer than their usual.

Like how Neil bit down on the inside of his cheek when he was concentrating and how his eyebrows creased together slightly when he was deep in thought.

He noticed how Neil’s restless, junkie legs bounced up and down with the need to get up and move, even while Neil was completely immersed in his work.

Without a doubt, he hated the little things about Neil the most.

That’s when Neil noticed the attention on him, those anxious runaway habits finally kicking in. He looked up to meet Andrew’s stare, eyes wide and _blue_. Andrew hated that shade of blue.

“What?” he asked.

Andrew continued to stare, expression blank.

“What?” Neil repeated, and this time, his face softened in a way that, to Andrew’s distain, seemed to be reserved only for him.

“Think quieter,” Andrew finally replied.

Neil’s expression morphed into one of indignancy at that, and he scoffed.

“It’s just math,” Neil said with that smug look on his face because he knew, he _knew_ how much Andrew detested the subject. Neil’s jests were a fish hook, dangling in Andrew’s face.

He rolled his eyes and decided to bite.

“That why you’ve been erasing more than you’ve been writing for the past half hour?” Andrew grunted. Neil seemed pleased at that, and it wasn’t until he responded that Andrew realized why.

“What, can’t keep your eyes off me?”

Which was met with a narrow “fuck off” before Andrew leaned into Neil’s space, shoving the useless math work aside.

“Yes or no?”

  1. Neil’s mom. Andrew was objectively self-aware, so when he thought of Neil as the spawn of Satan, he knew that he was being slightly over-the-top.



Except that he wasn’t.

Did that make Neil’s mother Satan? Andrew wasn’t religious, but he could draw up a reasonable comparison as such without batting an eye.

Neil didn’t speak on her much, and if Andrew wanted to give him any credit, he’d think it was because Neil recognized that the woman was insignificant. 

However, Andrew rarely gave credit, even when credit was due, and he saw through Neil’s façades of “ _I’m fine_.”

No. Neil did not deem his mother as insignificant.

Andrew was certain that Neil was wary of his reaction to what was left unsaid whenever he mentioned his mom, and with good reason too. He refused to offer Neil any sympathy regarding her death. She wasn’t something to miss, never something to mourn, and to Andrew, she was scum beneath his shoe. Even besides the fact that she’d touched Neil with malicious intent, had Andrew met the woman who’d forced her own son into a life on the run, there would’ve been yet another car accident to stage.

It wasn’t like Andrew couldn’t see how touchy Aaron would get over his own drug-addicted, batshit mother though, and she had been about as decent a person as any drug-addicted, batshit mother could be.

Andrew himself had discarded any ideals relating to feelings a long time ago, but that didn’t make comprehending Neil’s own emotions towards his mother difficult.

Everything had been fine, as Neil would say, during practice, Nicky’s meant-to-be-sly remarks on Neil’s shorts and Kevin’s relentless drilling aside; Wymack and Abby were both gone for the day, stuck on press conference duty, which left Dan in charge of the foxes.

Exy was an inevitably hum-drum activity that, sometimes, Andrew deeply regretted ever picking up. However, it passed the time, and he didn’t necessarily mind seeing Neil in those damn shorts that Nicky was badgering about anyways.

It was admittedly difficult to _care_ about the stick game, but sometimes, when the foxes were tied up with another team on game nights, and there were only a couple seconds left on the clock, Andrew could, well, not feel, but something.

And if part of that something had to do with the look of passion and confidence on Neil’s face during those last few seconds of the game, Andrew would never admit it.

That’s what it always seemed to circle back to: Neil’s obsession with exy.

That’s what it circled back to as, while they were running their final play of practice, Neil dove left with the ball in his racket, and Matt dove right with his own racket dangling loosely by his side to check Neil into the nearby wall of the court. Matt’s miscalculation with his exy stick and Neil’s fervency to dodge out of the way led, to Andrew’s faraway _, not at all caring_ , observation from goal, to a twisting, tripping, and crashing Neil as Matt’s racket connected with his ankle; out of the corner of his eye, Andrew almost thought that he saw even Aaron wince at the fall.

Now Neil was lying on the ground, hands grabbing at his ankle, and Andrew was making his way across the court without a second thought.

Matt stood over Neil, hovering like the incessant mother hen that he was, with a look of guilt and panic.

“I’m okay,” Neil said, trying to get up and failing miserably. Kevin, surprisingly, reached the two before Andrew could and sat down by Neil to poke at his injured ankle. Neil winced back, and that was enough of that.

“Move,” Andrew said, face blank but voice firm.

Matt stepped back, now biting at his nail and mumbling something incoherent about not watching where his racket was, while Kevin continued making grabby motions at Neil’s already-swelling ankle.

“Andrew, I need to see if it’s bad,” Kevin tried reasoning and was promptly shoved aside. Kevin clutched at his scarred hand as if reminiscing about his own past injuries, and Andrew would’ve scoffed at the reaction if Neil hadn’t kept trying to get up.

“Stop moving,” Andrew ordered. Neil, though, stubborn Neil continued trying to push himself up off of the ground.

“I’m fine,” he tried, “I can keep playing.”

“You can’t even stand.”

Neil huffed, frustration written all over his face. Andrew wanted to shake him in times like these. Instead, he picked up Neil’s discarded racket that had been dropped somewhere along the way of Neil’s collapsing and headed for the doors to the equipment room. Neil couldn’t play if he didn’t have a racket to play with.

Apparently, Neil realized that too, as his attempts to stand grew more fervent.

“ _Stop_ ,” Neil demanded.

Andrew rolled his eyes, turning only to motion at Aaron who was walking over as if he’d rather be anywhere else. Andrew liked to keep his interactions with Aaron as brief as possible, so he didn’t bother explaining that prestigious _Doctor Minyard_ needed to check Neil’s ankle. Aaron had presumably already figured that out.

“ _Hey_ ,” Nicky called from his position down the court, already stalking over with horribly concealed worry, “is Neil okay?”

Andrew sent his cousin a levelled glare that stopped him in his tracks and continued towards the court doors.

“Stop,” Neil repeated behind him, and something in his voice made Andrew actually listen this time.

Andrew looked at the fallen exy player and noticed, with a combination of hatred and unfortunately, concern, that Neil’s breathing was beginning to speed up, his chest rising and falling at a faster rate than it should be.

He dropped the racket and approached Neil, who couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from his purpling ankle.

“Neil,” he said.

Neil did not look up, nor did he respond.

“Neil,” he tried again, “enough.”

The striker merely shook his head, face pale from beneath his helmet. Andrew had to disdainfully remind himself that _you do not do concern_.   
  


Neil’s panicking only seemed to subside slightly when he finally dragged his stare up from his leg to Andrew and an approaching Aaron. Andrew would have to goad Neil into explaining this sudden meltdown later, but for now, he remained close and waited for a verdict.

Aaron reached them with a look of distaste and squatted down to level a glance at Neil’s ankle; he prodded at the swelling, frowning, and Andrew had to bite back the need to tell Aaron to step away as Neil squinted in pain.

“I think it’s sprained, but Abby has more experience with this stuff than me.”

Neil gazed down at his injured ankle like it held the secrets to the universe, breathing not quite even, and Aaron, like the rest of the team who had backed away to the other side of the court to converse, seemed to get the memo that Neil needed to be left alone. He cast one last indignant glance between Andrew and Neil before walking away.

“Neil,” Dan called from across the court, “I’ll go grab some ice.”

Andrew, tuning into Neil’s quiet breakdown, bent down to grab on to the latter’s wrist where he knew that Neil kept bands for his now-obnoxiously long hair. Neil watched him do so in a haze, eyebrows pinching together, and Andrew tugged at one of the rubber bands before succinctly flinging it at Neil’s leg.

“What the fuck Andrew—”

“You have two options,” Andrew started, “you can sit here and wallow, or you can move the recovery process along, call Abby, and ice it. Choice is yours.”

Neil glared up at him through his helmet gear, and Andrew held out his hand. This was as helpful as he planned on being, the eyes of the rest of the team searing into him from across the court.

Neil reluctantly took his hand.

It was windier than he’d expected it to be on the roof that night, and Andrew crossed his arms to block out the chill that broke out over his skin; he hated the cold almost as much as he hated Neil.

Neil, who was sitting silently beside him, cigarette poised in front with a face that was lost in thought. Andrew didn’t break the silence, instead watching lights across the street start to flicker awake as the sun lowered itself into the ground.

“Abby says I have to sit out practice for at least a week.”

Andrew turned his stare to Neil at that, searching for signs of dismay or frustration. Neil’s emotions, opposed to the mess of that morning, were carefully boarded up though, his eyes a bit far away. If Andrew was feeling spiteful, he’d call Neil a drama queen and move on. He was not naive, however. This wasn’t just about exy.

He waited for Neil to continue.

“I know everyone thinks I’m stupid and,” Neil huffed, “and obsessed. Even Kevin chewed me out for not giving up this morning.”

Andrew scoffed, took a drag of his cigarette before responding.

“The fact that you consider giving yourself time to heal as giving up proves that you are, in fact, stupid and obsessed.”

Neil glared at him. “But I’m _not_.”

All Andrew had to do was give him his _yeah, right_ stare before Neil went on.

“I can’t even count how many times I’ve delt with worse than a minor tweak in my ankle and still kept running. I got _shot_ , and I kept moving.”

He went silent for a moment, looking down at his newly-wrapped ankle.

“I didn’t need to stop this morning. I sure as hell don’t need to stop for a week.”

“Your case for being obnoxiously destructive doesn’t add up,” Andrew replied, voice steel, “you are not on the run anymore. Your life isn’t being threatened.”

Neil’s eyes briefly slipped shut, and he inhaled the smoke that was rising from his cigarette.

“But I’ve been fine through worse. A sprained ankle is nothing, and I can’t afford to fall behind.”

Andrew figured Neil meant Ichoriou and his little 80% policy, but there was something else left unsaid in Neil’s words, something tenser.

“You know,” Neil started, shifting closer to Andrew, “my mom would already kill me just for being here. I can’t even imagine what she’d say if she saw me taking a break because of something like this.” Neil shook his foot for emphasis, and Andrew had half a brain to throw him off of the roof and just be done with him.

“Your mother was and is nothing,” Andrew said. Because it was true, after all. Neil’s mom was a poison and irrelevant, and Andrew would’ve liked to see her head on a pike in times like these specifically.

Neil looked at him, his blue eyes piercing Andrew with short and sharp anger for a moment before dissipating into something softer. “I know you can’t understand it. I don’t expect you to,” Neil shrugged, took a shaky breath, “but it’s like I’m waiting for her to come around the corner and just tell me to pack my shit and _go_.”

Andrew hated Neil. He hated Neil’s mother. He hated the hold that Neil’s mother still had over him, and he hated that Neil couldn’t see that his worth did not rely on his ability to keep going and be fine.

Andrew grabbed on to the collar of Neil’s shirt, unsure as to why, but feeling the need to hold on to something of Neil’s before Neil fell apart.

“She’s gone. You’re here.” Then, with something akin to hesitation, however brief, “that’s all there is.”

Neil, eyes wide, nodded and leaned his shoulder against Andrew, and Andrew, despite himself, allowed it.

He hated Neil.

He wanted Neil to feel closer to alright.

“I miss her,” Neil said quietly, and Andrew nodded.

“I know.”

He was wrong. It wasn’t the little things that Andrew hated most about Neil. It was the way that Neil obliviously made Andrew feel the need to be there for him.

  1. “Holy shit,” Nicky screeched by the door, hands hovering over his mouth in fake-shock. “Hot _damn_ , Neil.”



Over the past couple of months, Nicky’s invasive and irritatingly transparent flirting with Neil had slowed down; Andrew knew that this was a symptom of his and Neil’s, well, not a _thing_ , but a something. He also knew that Nicky was dimly wise enough to know better than to make his obscene comments on Neil’s appearance.

Before Andrew could even reach for a knife under his arm bands, Neil stepped into the room.

Andrew would never possess the mindset, never understand why Nicky said half of the shit that he did, nor would Andrew ever be capable of rationalizing the death wish that Nicky so clearly had when he opened his mouth.

However, Neil stepped into the room, and that was that.

Andrew stopped mid-motion, hand risen in the air, and there was a moment of malfunction that he would never admit to.

To be perfectly clear, Andrew was under no qualms of confusion or uncertainty when it came to how he felt about Neil, if he felt at all.

  
He hated Neil. Simple. Easy. No explanation needed, he just despised him.   
And standing in the doorway to their dorm room was yet another reason to absolutely loathe the striker.

Allison must’ve just cut his hair, because it was nowhere near long enough to require those elastic bands that Neil kept around his wrist; it was shaved close on the sides and spilled over his forehead in a rush of auburn. There was no possible way that Allison hadn’t picked out his clothes too, Andrew deciphered, because Neil was incapable of matching a shirt to pants, let alone have a sense of style. Yet there Neil stood, clad in a tight black top and dark, ripped skinny jeans with red converse to boot. 

Andrew masked his now-honed-in attention with a blank stare, however that didn’t stop the smirk that Neil sent in his direction.

_Arrogant_ , screamed one half of Andrew’s brain. _Attractive_ , whispered the other.

Andrew clenched his jaw and looked away, but only before forcefully turning Nicky’s prying eyes away from Neil with a hand around his jaw.

“Okay,” Nicky whined, rubbing at his jaw as if Andrew actually had put any force behind the shove, “I get it, I get it.” Placatingly, or at least trying to be, Nicky raised his hands in surrender, and Andrew wanted to bash his head in with the boots that he was wearing. Instead, he got up and wrapped a hand around Neil’s wrist, tugging the latter out of the room.

“We’re leaving now,” was all he offered.

Neil shrugged, smiling slightly. The plan was Eden’s tonight, hence why Neil was actually wearing something that wasn’t baggy jeans or sweatpants.

He dragged Neil down the flight of stairs that led to the parking lot, the striker keeping pace with that cocky smirk of his, before abruptly stopping with two more flights to go; he pushed Neil back into a wall, the surface rough and unyielding. It would have to do.

“Yes or no?” he asked and couldn’t help how the words came out heated and poised; Neil nodded assent, licking his lips with an equally-heated ‘yes.’

Now this, this had never been the hard part of whatever this thing was with Neil. _Not a thing_.

It wasn’t necessarily difficult for Andrew: the way that Neil would tug at Andrew’s hair like a life line, the sounds that Neil would make when Andrew had him all worked up, the careful touches that Neil would apply, never like Andrew was something fragile, but always like he was something to be desired; the physical part of this, _not a this_ , could never be perfect, but it wasn’t impossible either.

The part that was hard, it seemed, was the ‘why’ behind the boundaries that Andrew would sometimes allow Neil to cross, boundaries that Andrew had never willingly allowed anyone else to cross before.

He tried to keep the thoughts at bay, the ones regarding how maybe this wasn’t difficult because he trusted Neil, and maybe trusting Neil made this difficult, and maybe the word hate didn’t mean so much as the definition but the sound of the word itself, and maybe. . .

  
He kissed Neil, not kindly, not gently, but with purpose and promise.

And Neil kissed him back, somehow always keeping up with Andrew no matter how hard Andrew tried to outrun, outlast, outwit. It was like Andrew could hold the world over Neil’s head, threatening to crush, and Neil wouldn’t even bat an eye.

Andrew kissed him, his hands finding Neil’s chest, his neck, his waist. He pushed Neil back into the wall harder, gripping and grasping, and if Andrew had ever been thankful for an eidetic memory, it would be for the ease at which he could recall what made Neil tick, what made him shiver.

He moved down to Neil’s neck, kissing the flushed skin, and Neil gave a pitchy gasp that had Andrew’s heart beating faster.

“Andrew,” Neil whispered, composure looking almost wrecked, and Andrew noticed Neil’s hands fisted in his pockets.

Trust.

Andrew never viewed Neil as soft. The man was jagged, edges sharp and ready to cut anyone who came too close, but sometimes those jagged edges would smoothen out, and Andrew wasn’t sure of what to make of Neil when that happened.

He met Neil’s gasp with his mouth one last time before walking away without a word.

He hated the trust that Neil gave to him, and he hated the trust that, somehow, he had given to Neil.

  1. Neil was sick. This was a fact. An undeniable, viably true fact.



It was also a fact that Neil pretended did not exist and would not affect him.

Neil was insufferable. There was no getting around that little trait of his, just like there was no way for Neil to get around the desk that Andrew had pushed up against the door to their dorm room. Kevin had insisted that a barricade was necessary.

“You’re not leaving,” Andrew deadpanned.

Neil sat on his bunk bed, arms crossed and looking more petulant than ever. His workout clothes, which he’d only tugged on a half hour ago, were already coated in sweat and stuck to his skin, courtesy of a fever that Neil continued to deny that he had.

  
Neil gestured to the desk shoved against the door, eyes slightly hazy, “is that really necessary?”

Kevin shouted from the other side of the door, eavesdropping into their conversation, “think of the team. You’ve already tried leaving twice.”

Neil groaned to himself, jumbling some sort of incoherent slur of words relating to ‘I’m fine.’

Andrew propped himself up on the desk, sitting crisscrossed to monitor Neil and his broken-down immune system. Neil stared back, eyes squinted in what was probably meant to be intimidating, but really just made him look more confused than ever.

“Can’t keep me here forever,” he mumbled. Andrew rolled his eyes.

“Abby will be here in twenty minutes. Stay put til then.”

Neil did not, in fact, stay put.

Andrew began to doubt the accuracy of the thermometer that they’d tested him with; what was claiming to be a 101.6-degree fever had Neil almost in hysterics. At first, the latter had simply started tapping his foot, eyes scanning the room as if searching for nearby perils of danger. Neil’s cheeks were flushed, his eyes dilated. The mumbling became more insistent, and Neil began to pace.

“This is ridiculous—” Neil exasperated, then stubbed his toe on the wall of their bedroom which he was attempting to scale. He shook out his foot, “Andrew, I gotta get to practice, quit fucking around.”

Neil made for the desk that kept him quarantined within the dorm, but Andrew remained seated on it, certain that with Neil’s illness, he wouldn’t be able to budge the furniture, probably couldn’t even without Andrew’s weight on top of it.

“You’re sick. Sit down.”

Neil did not, in fact, sit down.

“Fine. Suit yourself,” Neil sneered. He turned, grabbed hold of the top railing to their bunk beds, and began doing chin-ups. Andrew might’ve been amused, had it not been for Neil falling to the ground after five reps.

“I hit my head,” he said, as if he was stupefied by the sudden collapse.

Andrew checked his phone, a rare action on his part, and noted that Abby was three minutes late. He felt obligated to recollect on how exactly he had gotten himself into this situation. Babysitting a sick Neil was not on his to-do list today, and yet, here he was: barricading the exy lunatic in his own dorm room while said exy lunatic continued to injure himself.

He heaved himself off of the desk in one smooth motion and stood over a sweaty, pale Neil.

Andrew meant to say, ‘ _calm down, Neil, and wait til Abby gets here_.’ What came out was

“You’re being obnoxious.”

Neil, Andrew noted with a hint of hatred and something else that he couldn’t quite recall, actually flinched at that.

“Sorry,” he replied, and rubbed at the top of his head, making no move to get up off of the ground.

“Don’t,” Andrew gritted out and grabbed Neil by the arm, hauling him up swiftly and setting him down on the bed. “Sit still.”

Neil, to his credit, didn’t get back up this time, legs still bouncing repeatedly on the mattress like they were itching to run a marathon. Andrew could feel the weight of Neil’s wide-eyed stare on him, and it was admittedly difficult to look away. He steeled himself.

“Andrew,” Neil said.

Andrew flicked his gaze to Neil, letting him know that he had his attention.

“I feel hot,” Neil covered his face with his hands, curling into a fetal position on the bed. Andrew didn’t roll his eyes, but it was a close thing.

“You have a fever, Neil.”

Neil shook his head, hands coming up to tug at his hair. Andrew didn’t want things, but if he did, he’d want to know where Abby was right now.

“I’m not obnoxious,” Neil whispered.

He hated Neil.

Andrew hummed, leaning back against the frame of the bed. Neil uncurled himself from his balled-up position to send a look of contempt at Andrew, before swaying slightly and laying back down.

“I’m gonna be honest with you, Andrew,” Neil squared a solemn look in Andrew’s direction, “I think you’re pretty obnoxious too.”   
  


Andrew raised one eyebrow before Neil continued, “but I like it.”

He clenched his jaw.

“I like you,” Neil went on, a cheeky smile appearing on his face.

This, Andrew would not do. He would sit on a desk barricading a sick Neil inside, he would make sure that Neil didn’t further damage his already exy-muddled brain, but he would not listen to Neil’s feverish admittances.

“Shut up,” he replied.

“It’s true,” Neil said. “I thought you wanted the truth.”

_Trust. Truth. Lo_ —“Shut up,” Andrew snapped and added for good measure, “I hate you.”

The smile fell from Neil’s face almost instantly, a trembling line taking its place. Andrew didn’t feel guilty. He did not feel regret. He certainly didn’t regret stopping Neil from saying something stupid. If anything, Andrew reasoned, Neil would thank him later for ending the precarious conversation, unable to see how dangerous these words were in his delirious state of mind.

But Neil didn’t seem very thankful now, instead opting for turning his back to Andrew in a child-like maneuver that was, well, child-like. Andrew scoffed.

“You’re sick, Neil,” he sighed, “you don’t even understand half of the words that are coming out of your mouth.” A knock on the door to their room told Andrew that Abby had finally arrived, and he got up to move the desk out of the way. Neil continued to pout in the corner, staring at the wall like it was the most fascinating thing he’d seen all day.

Abby walked in, and Andrew didn’t bother to acknowledge her, turning back to Neil’s now-shaking form.

“You said his temperature read as 101.6?” Abby inquired, and he gave her a brief nod. She knelt down beside Neil, knowing better than to reach out and touch him in this state. Neil did not turn around, simply hugging his knees to his chest and trembling like a leaf.

“Neil?” She tried softly.

“Hi, Abby,” Neil whispered, his voice hoarse. “I don’t feel good.”

Andrew raised his eyebrows at that. It was one thing for Neil to stay in while he was sick, the obsessive striker rarely missing a day of practice, but it was a completely separate dilemma when Neil began admitting that he wasn’t alright.

“I’m going to check your temperature again, okay?”

Neil nodded, finally shifting so that he was facing Abby, and his bangs were stuck to his forehead from sweat, his mouth curling downwards in what Andrew deciphered to be disconsolation. Neil leaned his head back against the wall as Abby pulled a thermometer from her bag and stuck it in his mouth, and Andrew couldn’t help but notice how much younger Neil looked when he was like this. Something tugged at his chest, he could feel it, but he quickly squashed the insistent protective streak away.

Neil was insufferable, he reminded himself. Neil was insufferable, and he hated him.

He heard a quick intake of breath from Abby, and tuned back into focus, watching her stare down at the beeping thermometer in abject concern.

“This reads it as a 104,” she said.

Andrew tried to recall if that meant Neil was in critical condition, but he’d never researched things like this before. He rarely got sick, and on the dreadful occasion of growing ill when he was a child, he was usually just scolded to grow the fuck up.

Abby looked to Andrew, “we’re going to have to take him to the ER.”

Neil’s eyes widened at that, a flash of panic taking over. “No,” he said. He moved to lean back from Abby, searching for something. When his flickering stare caught on Andrew, he realized that Neil was looking for him.

“Andrew,” Neil tried, “I can’t go.”

Abby cut in, “Neil, I understand that you’re hesitant with hospitals, but you need to see a doctor. This could be serious.”

And that, that had the tugging feeling in Andrew’s chest spike back up again, except worse.

“How serious?” he asked, uncaring of the slight urgency that may or may not have tinged his voice.

“It could just be a really bad case of the flu, but anything above a 103 shouldn’t be taken lightly,” she responded. “He needs to go.”

“ _No_ ,” Neil cried out, making to get up off of the bed. Abby reached out to stop him, and Neil flinched back, shaking his head almost desperately. “No hospitals,” he said.

Andrew moved, slowly so that Neil could see him approach, and Abby wisely got out of the way before Andrew had to demand it.

“You’re not with your mom anymore, Neil,” he lowered his voice, “no one will be angry with you for getting help.”

Neil blanched, confusion written all across his face. “I can’t go, Andrew,” Neil said, voice cracking, “she’s gonna get so mad at me.”

Andrew grabbed the back of Neil’s neck, grounding him. “ _She is not here_ ,” he resolved in German, “ _you’re in Palmetto State. You have a fever, and you need to get it checked out. I will be there with you, and I will not let anything happen_.”

Neil shut his eyes, his delirium clearly at war with the present, “I don’t like this,” he whispered.

“It’s not forever,” Andrew steeled, “we’re going. We’ll figure it out.”

Neil grappled for Andrew’s hand, eyes still squeezed shut, and got up.

Maybe the most difficult thing about this, Andrew thought, was how difficult it was for him to hate Neil.

  1. “Fuck you,” Neil exclaimed with little heat behind his words. He wore the traditional Josten smirk as Andrew had labeled it and sauntered over to the counter where his fruit bowl sat, picking up a spoon and pointedly shoving copious amounts of blueberries into his mouth.



Andrew rolled his eyes, unamused.

It was unabashedly irritating, Neil’s obsession with eating healthy, almost as irritating as his obsession with running. Andrew had said as much, feeling the need to express exactly how often Neil’s little quirks got on his nerves. Neil only responded with a knowing, but not unfriendly glare.

Knowing. Neil knowing Andrew. It was becoming rather obvious just how well Neil knew Andrew, considering the only time he had ever grown exasperated with Andrew’s “ _I hate you_ ”s was when Neil had a 104-degree fever and was out of his mind.

This was alarming.

He couldn’t pinpoint when his words had become so transparent, only fathoming the fact that they were, and there was nothing that he could do to change that. It was out of his control.

Perhaps the only thing that he hated more than Neil himself was being out of control. And both of these objects of his seething hatred were now at war with each other, battling for dominance. Which would win? His innate need for calculating and correlating damages or the hot mess that was Neil Josten? Andrew did not want to find out.

Neil’s words interrupted his thoughts. “My body is a temple,” he snarked, “I’d rather fixate on fruit than ice cream.”

Andrew narrowed his eyes. “You sound more and more like Kevin every day. Is that really an attribute you want?”

Neil let out a laugh, but covered it to sound like a cough as Kevin himself walked by, the sour look on his face betraying that he’d heard their conversation.

“Both of you need to restrict your dieting habits. Only eating fruit is just as destructive as ice cream,” Kevin doled out matter-of-factly. Andrew sent Neil a pointed _this is who you’re becoming_ look, and Neil caught it with a grin.

That _grin_. Andrew had to suppress another eye roll at the sheer annoyance that Neil’s stupid smile caused him, with his bright white teeth and his arched lips that were actually full—

_Not the time for this._

Kevin looked between the two of them, Andrew eyeing Neil’s mouth and Neil’s half-lidded gaze latching on, and almost violently pushed the stool that he’d pulled out back underneath the counter, turning abruptly and leaving the room. He stopped at the door, however, and sent them a stern look.

“Don’t even think about—”

Andrew slammed the door in his face.

He heard Neil fall back on to one of the beanbags and flick on the tv; at closer glance, it was an exy game that Neil had turned on, and this time, Andrew did not bother suppressing the eye roll. Dropping down beside Neil, he grabbed the remote from the latter’s pliant hands and lowered the volume before asking.

“Yes or no?”

Neil’s blue eyes darkened as he lowered them to stare at Andrew’s lips. “Yes.”

Andrew leveled above Neil by holding himself over the striker’s lean body with a hand by his side, the other one coming up to pull Neil in by the collar of his shirt. Andrew leaned in, stopping a breadth away from Neil’s lips before deciding that pettiness had won over his desires.

“You wanted to watch the game,” Andrew said lowly, “go ahead.”

He pushed Neil back into the bean bag, who went without a fight, though appeared startled at first.

“What—”

Andrew quieted him by kissing his neck, nipping at the soft skin, and Neil’s quickened breathing was reason enough to continue. Andrew moved downwards slowly, and Neil tried to meet the movement with a kiss before Andrew tipped the striker’s chin back up towards the screen. He tutted.

“Watch the game, Neil.”

When he sucked a hickey into a particularly sensitive spot on Neil’s neck, he heard a soft whimper, followed by a groan when Andrew grinded into him.

Time passed as he lazily kissed Neil, the latter’s quiet sounds growing louder the more Andrew wore his composure down. Watching Neil lose control was a pastime that Andrew had come to relinquish.

“Andrew,” Neil tried, but Andrew shushed him again, hand going beneath the hem of Neil’s shirt to feel the warmth of his skin. Neil sighed, a short huff of breath through his nose, his obvious attempts at stability fraying. Andrew heard a whistle blow in the background, emitting from the tv, and looked up at Neil’s face to search for recognition.

While Neil’s eyes were on the screen, he showed no sign of comprehension of what just happened in the game, eyes hazy and looking, quite frankly, wrecked.

Andrew finally shifted up, catching Neil’s lips in a kiss that was anything but gentle. He could feel Neil’s heartbeat thrum fast, noticed his hands formed into fists by his sides, and once again, Andrew’s mind relayed back to the trust.

A bizarre philosophy. Unfamiliar too.

Neil’s eyes softened, catching his gaze. “Andrew,” he said, like that was _something_.

“To be clear, I hate you,” Andrew replied, and Neil nodded before Andrew went back to taking him apart.

+1. It was stupid. This whole thing, whatever it was, was ridiculous, astoundingly so. Andrew had never been a liar. He was many things, but obstructing from the truth was Neil’s gig, not his; somehow, though, along the course that Neil and him seemed to be treading, Andrew had gotten caught up in the intention of hating Neil, desperately trying to convince himself of this one emotion, spite, that he hadn’t realized just how much of a lie that he was pertaining to.

He hated Neil.

But he didn’t, and that was a problem. That was an issue, a concern, a dilemma that he had no idea how to face, how to approach, where to even start. The idea, just the idea of _not_ hating Neil, the compelling truth of the situation, made him sick. It made him incapable of speech and any sort of interaction with anyone, let alone Neil himself.

Because he had two options, really. Andrew knew that there was no way that Neil wouldn’t evoke something from him. There had to be some feelings involved, because when it came to Neil, unfeeling was unheard of. So, he had two options: he could hate Neil or he could give in.

This was a battle that he was not prepared to lose. He refused to lose.

In that refusal though, he hadn’t even realized that he’d already lost.

“Hey,” Neil had said. They were sitting on the roof top just like every other night, the sun long gone and the stars out for a while, and Neil had said “hey.”

Andrew looked at him. Neil’s blue eyes, the shade that he hated, and that grin, the shape that he hated, and that arrogance, the tactless charm that he hated.

Neil said “hey.”

And Andrew knew that he didn’t really hate Neil.

He didn’t hate him at all.


End file.
